Cuban Jails Altered

August 11, 1988

CUBAN JAILS where political prisoners have been kept naked in windowless rooms are being altered to make them appear more humane to outside investigators, a U.S. human rights official said Wednesday. Ambassador Armando Valladares, U.S. representative to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, made the accusation and released photographs of prisoners and their cells he said were smuggled out of one prison by Cuban dissidents. Valladares, who was a prisoner of Cuban leader Fidel Castro before he was released in 1982 and allowed to emigrate to the United States, said some of the worst jail cells -- including one called ''the triangle of death'' -- have been dismantled but others remain in more than 200 jails all over Cuba.